Telling the story of Iowa agriculture to attendees at Iowa’s County Fairs and Festivals who are not directly connected to agriculture. One guy that’s been doing it for a while farms near Dysart as his family has done for over 170 years is Bob Hill, or as he’s more commonly known, Hillbilly Bob. He’s a familiar sight not only at Iowa’s county fairs and festivals but across the Midwest driving his old John Deere tractor or his old Model A Ford.
“I have the tractor and I also do the hillbilly car and I’ve been paid to go to 29 different states and Canada, and I’ve traveled in 41 states and Canada getting there over the years so we have seen a lot of fairs. This is a 1949 John Deere MT and it is really decked out with like hundreds of antiques. My family has actually lived on the same farm for 170 years, my great great grandfather homesteaded there, six miles north of Dysart in 1853 and we farmed there ever since and never thrown anything away-so we got lots of stuff.”
Which is fantastic and always a popular attraction particularly amongst the next generation. He says it’s all about following his passion for promoting agriculture.
“So we actually got started at a Cattle Congress 30 years ago this year, our son was an FFA State officer and he was here doing the celebrity milking contest in a tuxedo and milking cows and selling raffle tickets for a horse trailer when my Model A Ford got discovered by a booking agent and he put us on the road and since then we have been all over the country.”
Quite the sight to see no doubt and even more fun to be able to have a conversation with Hillbilly Bob.
